MEASLES-VIRUS RNA IS NOT DETECTED IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL-DISEASE USINGHYBRID CAPTURE AND REVERSE TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWED BY THE POLYMERASE-CHAIN-REACTION

Recent epidemiological and immunohistochemical studies have indicated a possible link between measles virus and inflammatory bowel disease ( IBD). The aim of this study was to use a sensitive and robust method f or the detection of measles virus RNA in IBD and control clinical samp les. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells and intestinal resection tissu e from IBD and control patients were studied. Two methods were used to determine the presence of measles virus RNA: hybrid capture, using me asles virus-specific oligonucleotides linked to paramagnetic solid-pha se supports, was carried out on total cellular RNA to enrich for measl es virus RNA sequences. Reverse transcription followed by the polymera se chain reaction (RT-PCR) using rTth DNA polymerase was employed for amplification of measles virus N-gene sequences amongst the enriched s pecies. Total RNA was also used for RT-PCR of a housekeeping mRNA spec ies to assess RNA quality. RT-PCR for another region of the measles ge nome (the haemagglutinin (H) gene) was also undertaken in order to con firm the results obtained using N-gene primers for analysis of these s amples. None of the samples were positive for measles N- or H-gene RNA using RT-PCR. Positive control samples confirmed the sensitivity of t he methods employed. These results show that either measles virus RNA was not present in the samples, or was present below the sensitivity l imits known to have been achieved. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.